


Helplessness Blues

by shermanerm



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, M/M, other characters mentioned but not prominent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 20:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shermanerm/pseuds/shermanerm
Summary: The first time Taako steps into parlay, he’s kind of surprised at how attractive the spokesperson for the Hunger is. Taako can deal with attractive, and he can deal with possibly lethal, so he slides onto the green loveseat with a wicked smirk.“What’s your name, thug?”





	Helplessness Blues

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know where this came from, but here you go. Beta'ed by luminessence on ao3, and they're fantastic and saved my life.
> 
> Title is from the Fleet Foxes song by the same name.

The first time Taako steps into parlay, he’s kind of surprised at how attractive the spokesperson for the Hunger is. Taako can deal with attractive, and he can deal with possibly lethal, so he slides onto the green loveseat with a wicked smirk. “What’s your name, thug?”

The man looks adorably flustered, and has to take a moment before he can actually respond. Taako takes that moment to remind himself that this is the actual literal enemy, and not some guy he can have a meet-cute with. “My name is Kravitz.” Dude has the weirdest fantasy cockney accent ever, but Taako can roll with it. “And you are?”

Taako gives him a deadpan look. “Taako, y’know, from the ship you’ve been following for 30-some years?”

Kravitz looks incredibly confused, before his expression clears and his eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, you mean the ship that takes the Light each time?”

Taako doesn’t say anything more, just smiles. He almost forgot that this is the enemy.

After a bit more of idle conversation, Kravitz looks around the room. “So, how exactly do I get out of here?”

“Well, you’ve got the control here, my dude. You could kill me, and that would eject you immediately, or you could just like, let this place go in your mind, apparently? I don’t know, they didn’t really tell me that part.” Taako blinks, surprised by his honest words.

Kravitz balks. “Why would I want to kill you?” He folds his arms and looks around, like someone will magically show up and tell him that Taako did, in fact, just say that. “I’m against people dying for no reason, Taako. Killing you when I could easily let you go? Doesn’t seem like a good reason.”

Taako doesn’t know how to respond. “I. You. You’ve been killing entire _planes_ for no reason, why would you care about _me?”_

Kravitz glared at him. “I haven’t been killing anyone, thank you very much. I play for them, and they decide to join me. No one dies, no one gets hurt. On that note, I think you should go.”

Taako’s next memory is of Lup’s face hovering over him. “Thought it was gonna kill you for sure, Koko.”

“Yeah,” Taako mutters, “Me too.”

Taako waits until the next cycle is nearing its end before he slips into parlay again.

* * *

The room is the same, silvery walls and a green couch. This time, there’s a piano. Kravitz sits at it, playing an incredibly sad song. Taako can feel it, pushing at his chest, his stomach. He feels an overflow of rage and grief and fear of the end, the inevitable.

Taako gets through it, because he is nothing if not stupidly stubborn. “Okay, but if you just transpose it up a little? It’ll be a lot happier.”

Kravitz doesn’t turn to face him, hands still working the keys. “This isn’t meant to be happy. Life isn’t happy.” His voice is casual, like he’s commenting on the weather. Maybe this is like the weather, for him. Taako snorts. Cloudy with a chance of nihilism.

“Okay, cha’boy’s not like, awake enough to deal with that right now.” Taako waves a hand like he’s physically batting away the subject. “So, what did you wanna be when you were a little kid?”

Kravitz looks a bit startled by the subject change, but he recovers quickly. “I, well, I wanted to be a conductor.” He looks up at Taako, who is staring at him with wide eyes. “For music, not for trains.”

Slowly, a bemused grin speads across Taako’s face. “So, was there any particular _reason_ why you faked an accent, or…”

Kravitz freezes for a moment, before he hangs his head with a defeated sigh. “It’s, uh, well…”

Taako leans in so he can hear Kravitz say it. This is fucking gold, he’s not going to miss it.

“...I thought the accent would make me seem cooler.” Kravitz says it softly enough that even with Taako so close, he almost doesn’t hear it. Then he looks up, and Taako realizes how close their faces are.

He leans back, slowly enough that he can watch Kravitz’s reaction to the proximity. When his back is against the couch cushions again, he grins. “That’s fucking hilarious.”

Kravitz looks flustered again, and Taako is kind of riding the high of flirting with the big angry vore cloud, which now that he thinks about it, is a _terrible_ sentence.

They talk more, and Taako manages to get a smile out of Kravitz before he wakes up on the ground, head a little achy, like he woke up from a too-long nap.

“Bro, you good? You were in there for like, an hour.” Lup’s looking at him with concern, but Taako shakes his head, standing a little unsteadily.

“Yeah, Lulu, I’m fine.”

* * *

Taako goes into parlay with the intent to get answers from the thing that’s been hunting him for decades.

He leaves parlay with music tips for Lup, and funny stories about Kravitz’s life spent performing, and no answers to any of his actual questions.

“You’re not telling him anything, though, right?” Lup looks at him with concern, and Taako scoffs.

“Of course not. Who do you think I am, Merle? I don’t go blabbing to every cute guy I see, Lup.”

There’s a beat of silence. “You think he’s cute? You think the fucking _vore cloud_ is cute?”

Magnus pops his head into the twins’ room. “Sorry, what about the vore cloud?” 

Taako grabs a pillow and tries to smother himself with it. He hates this fucking family.

* * *

“Do you know Wonderwall?”

Kravitz looks at where Taako’s laying on the loveseat, calves draped over the right armrest. “Sorry, what?”

Taako doesn’t move from his reclined position. “You know- _today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you,_ or whatever.” He glances at Kravitz, then looks back up at the indistinct ceiling. “It’s like, sad and shit. On theme for you.”

He can feel Kravitz staring at him, and Taako glances again. The look on Kravitz’s face is like he just discovered art, but also like that art was of nyan cat or something else bizarre. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Taako.”

Taako sits up, angry all of a sudden. “Yes, you have. You have met countless people like me! Then you decided to absorb them into your hivemind, or whatever, and now they’re gone.” He glares at Kravitz, who looks shocked at the outburst. “You say you never kill, but honestly, I’d prefer death to losing my will and individuality.”

There’s silence in the room, and for a second Taako thinks Kravitz will refute it, or argue.

Instead, he wakes up in a chair on the Starblaster, Lup and Magnus curled around him.

“Oh thank Istus, he didn’t kill you.” Lup pulls him closer, and Taako lets his eyes close. Maybe, if he sleeps, he won’t have to think about the hurt look on Kravitz’s face just before he left.

The next time Taako meets with Kravitz, it’s stilted and awkward in a way it’s never been. Kravitz sits at the piano, playing a lullaby, and Taako doesn’t look at him from his uncomfortable perch on the couch.

The relative silence lasts until Kravitz clears his throat. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

As the opening chords play, Taako falls off of his seat laughing.

Taako begins to dream of Kravitz, of what he thinks of as their room. He dreams of green couches, of learning piano, of the soft press of lips and smiles against necks.

The dreams aren’t even sexual, is the thing. He would be able to deal with the good old pervy dream, but this is just domesticity and fondness in 15 square feet. This is unknown, uncharted territory, and Taako hates it.

But, they’re just dreams, so it’s fine.

Until one night, when he’s having a particularly clear one, and he touches Kravitz’s hand, and Kravitz jerks back, startled.

Taako is frozen for a moment, arm outstretched, before he comes to himself. “Oh gods, this isn’t a dream.”

Kravitz is silent, of course he’s silent, because his semi-mortal enemy just tried to hold hands with him, _what the fuck is Taako’s problem._

“I need to go.” And Taako wakes up in his bed. He smacks a pillow over his face to muffle his groans of embarrassment. “ _Fuck!”_

He takes up meditation. It’s not near as nice as actual slumber, but he’s sure as fuck not risking sliding into parlay in his sleep again.

* * *

For a few weeks, Taako doesn’t go into parlay.

He realizes, after the first few days, that he spends an absurd amount of time in it. He has so much time, now that he’s not spending hours talking to Kravitz. He can bond with his family, now, instead of stupidly flirting with the thing that’s been chasing them for decades. He’s glad that he’s not seeing Kravitz. Really.

Except, the questions start to gnaw at him. What did Kravitz think of Taako being gone? What did Kravitz think of Taako? Had they really had that powerful of a connection, or had Taako just been pushy?

 After weeks of deliberating, of meditating so his unconscious brain wouldn’t reach out of its own accord, Taako falls into parlay. He wants some answers.

* * *

Kravitz is ecstatic. “Taako, you’re here! Oh, I took your advice, I’ve been learning some Fantasy Hozier, I think you’re going to like it.” His expression falters a little, when Taako just stands there. “Are you okay, Taako? Did something happen?”

“No, my guy, everything’s fine.” Taako sits down, and Kravitz pauses, then continues playing. He plays beautifully, and each time he executes a particularly complicated part of the song, Taako’s heart aches. He can feel tears prickling at his eyes, and he blinks them back. Instead of crying, Taako just takes in the moment, watching Kravitz do what he does best. After the song, Kravitz turns to look at him. “Do you want to talk? Maybe some twenty questions? It’s been a while, Taako.”

  
"What am I to you?" Taako winces even as he blurts it out, but he needs to say this. He needs to know, good or bad. "Do you even _like_ me? Are you using me to get information? Just-" He breathes out heavily, frustrated by the way his voice cracked. "What are we?"

Taako looks up to see Kravitz's face, set into a tableau of fear and realization. Then something starkly white catches his eye, and he looks to the side. A single wide eye stares at him. As he looks, horror creeping into his mind, another eye blinks open. Then another. Millions of eyes peer out from the darkened walls, staring at the two of them. In that moment, Taako realizes the score. Kravitz isn’t the leader, he’s the figurehead. He’s the puppet.

Taako opens his mouth to say something, anything, but before he can blinding pain like fire shoots through his body.

He wakes up on the Starblaster. Lup’s crying in relief, and as she hugs him, Taako realizes that this is the first time the Hunger has killed him. Kravitz just killed him.

Taako never reaches into parlay again.

* * *

They get to cycle 99, and they break the Light. The world fights around them, and Lup leaves, and Lucretia erases over a century of memories. Taako forgets everything from the last hundred years except a dream of being in love with a faceless pianist, listening to him play a song that Taako can’t make out.

* * *

_Ten Years Later_

Being pulled into parlay is a weird feeling. Like someone pulling your body to the right and back, but only your soul moves. A pull, and a slip, and a slide into a room and an enemy seated across from you.

"Hello, love, do you have a minute?"

The light gray the made up the walls of parlay has been taken over by black opal. The comfortable green couch is gone, the warm wood floors now inky and cold.

Kravitz, too, has been overcome with darkness, from the fracturing of his face to the colors of his wardrobe. He sits at the black piano, not playing anything, and Taako feels like he’s looking at a stranger.

He quirks a smile at Kravitz, and he can feel the curl of his mouth turning bitter and angry. "If you wanted me to give you the Light, you should've stayed handsome, my fella."

Kravitz smiles back, soft and sad and tired. Taako wants to walk over and touch him, but the divide between them is too big, despite the mere feet between them..

“Taako, I don’t think this is a battle you can run from.” Kravitz waves a hand, referencing the world outside of parlay. The world that the Hunger is very close to destroying entirely.

Kravitz pivots in his seat, turning so he can reach the piano’s keys. He doesn’t play them yet, though, hovering his hand above the C.

He picks at the keys like he’s never seen a piano before. Every note he touches brings little filaments of light into the air, and every strand causes Kravitz to go a little faster, to put a little bit more finesse into it.

Taako watches as Kravitz breaks down into his music, playing masterfully and beautifully until he doesn’t. His finger misses the key, and his hand comes down clumsy and discordant. Kravitz breathes for a second, as Taako watches him, and the eyes watch them.

“Taako, you need to be out there. Your family needs you out there. You need to go.” Kravitz won’t look up from the piano’s keys. His hands are faintly trembling. “You need to _break the bonds_ , Taako. Go home.”

Taako finally steps up, and brings a hand to Kravitz’s downturned face. “Babe,” Taako whispers, and Kravitz brings his face up. He’s crying, a little bit. They both know what this means.

Taako leans down and kisses him, putting every emotion he can’t name into it. He kisses Kravitz, and Kravitz kisses back, and when Taako pulls away, Kravitz has stopped crying.

Taako rests his forehead on Kravitz’s, and holds his Krebstar in his free hand. “I love you.”

He casts Fireball.

* * *

Kravitz wakes up in a lightless void.

There’s a brief moment of panic that the spell didn’t work, and Kravitz is back in the Hunger, until he realizes that the mass around him is not the formless black he’s known for over a century, but feathers.

The moment he realizes this, a voice runs through his head, clear and ringing.

“ **You are the reason We were cut off from the material plane.** ” The voice speaks plainly. Kravitz wants to confess, to atone for his mistakes, but he can’t move, can’t speak.

“ **I have Seen how this story ends. I have Seen how it must end. I have Seen the part you took, and the parts you will take.** ” The feathers rustle around Kravitz.

“ **You will take up my cause. You will become my next champion. I have Seen it, and so it shall be.** ” There is a pressure around his whole body, and Kravitz gasps. As Kravitz breathes in, he realizes he’s no longer in the mass of feathers. Instead, he is standing on a massive blue circle, and Taako is staring at him in surprise, a boy standing next to him with his wand out warily.

“What the fuck?!” Taako’s running over, feet slipping on the smooth surface underneath his boots, grabbing onto Kravitz when he’s close enough. “You look so _good,_ what the hell, I _just_ saw you with a fucked up face, my dude, how are you looking runway ready again?” And Taako shakes his head, and then he sees the scythe at Kravitz’s side, and laughs. “Ho-ho-holy shit, did you get _recruited?”_

Kravitz laughs, and clutches Taako close to him, because he can do that now. “Hi, Taako. I love you too.”

He hears a polite little cough from the edge of the crystal, and Kravitz looks up to see the boy, wand held casually in his small fist. “Sir, there’s an apocalypse going on. You can hug your boyfriend after we don’t die.”

Taako pulls back, keeping his hands on Kravitz. He looks at the boy. “Agnes, we just fucking turned the tides of this battle. Let me have a moment.”

There’s a flash of blue-tinted rainbow, and another man holding a scythe appears on the crystal. “Ah, Taako, thank you for opening that.” He straightens his pristine suit.

“No prob, John, I think I saw Merle over by the road, if you’re looking for him.”

John glares at Taako. “I think I can hold off on any heartfelt confessions until after the war is over.” He looks pointedly at Taako’s hands still on Kravitz’s biceps. “So can you, for that matter.”

Taako scoffs, letting go of Kravitz. “Fine, fine, I’ll go fight.” Before stepping entirely out of the circle, Taako grabs Kravitz one more time, and kisses him quick. “Don’t perma-die, okay?”

Kravitz laughs, and Taako grins at him in response, sharp and genuine and the most beautiful thing Kravitz has ever seen. Then Taako turns and dashes off, the boy wizard running after him. Kravitz allows himself one more second to feel the tidal wave of emotion crash through him, unmuted for the first time in over a century, before he turns and looks to the black opal forms littering the battlefield. He readies his scythe and runs.

Then after that, the story is much the same. The Hunger they fight does not have a handsome face at its front, but it doesn’t really matter. They still fight.

They still win.

* * *

_Three Months Later_

 

Lup rips a portal into Taako’s room, heedless of her brother screeching at her in alarm and frustration. “Put your pants on, vore boy, we’ve got a cult to kill.”

Kravitz groans, resting his head on Taako’s bare collarbone. “Can it wait a minute? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Nope!” Lup says cheerfully. “Stop diddling my brother and get ready to go. Apparently they’re going to start sacrificing kids.”

Kravitz slowly rolls off of Taako, materializing his clothes as he does. He stands up and adjusts his suit jacket, making sure his lines are clean. “I hate you so much, you know that, right?”

“If you hate me so much, how come you requested to be my partner?”

If Kravitz could blush, he would. “Because John is creepy as fuck, and I don’t want to have to deal with Barold more than necessary.”

Lup shrugs. “That’s fair, my taste is suspect.”

Taako leans up on one elbow, blanket slipping down a bit with his movements. “Hey, babe, Lulu, love you both. But Taako needs his fucking sleep. Please vacate the room.”

Lup smirks, waving a hand to Taako and opening a rift into a dank cavern. “Sucks to suck, baby bro.”

“Seven minutes,” Taako groans out as he shoves his head back into his pillow. Kravitz figures he’s got a stupid smile on his face, but he doesn’t care.

Until Lup elbows him, mock-glaring. “Get your game face on, vore boy. It’s time to kill a cult.”

“Please don’t call me ‘vore boy’ ever again.” As he says it, Kravitz schools his expression and steps through the rift. The last thing he hears before the rift closes behind him is a sleepy voice mumbling “love you”.

Kravitz can’t stop himself from smiling again.


End file.
